The 50-year-old businesswoman had to have her left leg amputated below the knee in 1993 after she was hit by a police motorcycle and after more operations on her limb, which further shortened it, she decided to ditch her conventional diet and go meat and dairy free to see if that could stop the deterioration.

Heather was inspired to make her radical switch after receiving advice from a friend, who told her to try to heal her leg by changing her diet because the health benefits of veganism had helped her pal beat cancer.

Although she was initially sceptical, Heather was amazed by the results the change had after she went to the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida and began eating a raw food vegan diet, although she accepts that extreme version of veganism is tough to stick to.

In an appearance on UK TV show 'This Morning' on Monday (29.05.18), she said: ''I didn't go vegan for the animals or the environment. It was the loss of my leg ... Being a Northerner I love sausage and mash! I was raw vegan for two years, but that's really difficult and a boring life ... There's no point, unless you are really, really sick, going over to a raw vegan diet as you are not going to stick to it.''

Speaking about the benefits going vegan had on her health in just ''two weeks'', she explained: ''I was healed in two weeks. My stomach was swollen like mad, I crushed my pelvis as well, punctured my lung and split my head. I noticed immediately all the gas all the bloat go down, all the digestive problems I had ... my energy came back. It was just incredible.''

Heather - who has her own range of vegan food called VBites - believes more and more people will go meat-free after learning of the unhealthy side effects of consuming animal flesh.

She said: ''Sugar, fat, meat is proven now scientifically [to be unhealthy]. When we were kids, as a Northerner we didn't have a lot of money, we had meat once a week or twice a week - your body can handle that. But now it's breakfast, lunch and dinner.''

Heather's 14-year-old daughter Beatrice - her child with ex-husband Sir Paul McCartney, who has been a vegetarian for over 40 years - has been raised a vegan and she previously claimed that growing up on that diet has had numerous benefits for the teenager.

Speaking to BANG Showbiz, Heather said: ''Her whole life Beatrice been vegan. And unlike the kids at school she doesn't get sick, she doesn't get colds. They just don't understand it, the same parents she has been at school with for seven years will ask me what to feed the kids, whereas before they frowned upon the fact that I was bringing up a child that's completely vegan. Now she's the tallest and fastest of all the boys and girls. Now they're asking me what they're feeding her because she's like a vegan grow-bag. She's really healthy.''